In piloting an aircraft it can happen to a pilot finding him or herself in difficult weather conditions that visual contact is lost, and as a result the pilot may inadvertently bring the aircraft into an unsafe attitude. Such unsafe attitudes, known to pilots as spins or stalls, are often caused by the aircraft getting into an excessive banking angle. Under such conditions a less experienced pilot will subconsciously tend to pull back on the control wheel or stick, which will aggravate the unsafe attitude and lead to pilot vertigo, in which case the pilot loses spatial orientation and possibly crashes the aircraft.
This condition is especially prevalent in smaller aircraft not normally equipped with instruments that automatically inform the pilot of any dangerous attitude of the aircraft.
It can be shown and is well known that in case a pilot enters a dangerous attitude such as a spin, the safest corrective action includes a leveling of the wings with the horizon, but if he cannot see the horizon he may be unable to perform the leveling maneuver.
It is known in the prior art to provide an aircraft gyro-horizon indicator with signal lamps as positional attitude indicator means, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,852,710. The known attitude indicators, however, have the drawback that they require constant attention of the pilot who has many other indicators that require his attention. It is therefore an object of the instant invention to provide an unsafe attitude indicator that constantly monitors the banking angle and only makes an indication in case the aircraft banking angle exceeds a given value as selected by the pilot. It is a further object to provide such an indicator that cooperates with the aircraft control elements to automatically restore the aircraft to a safe banking angle in case it should inadvertently be exceeded.